Biscuits, Spoonbread, and Sweet Potato Pie

Shop Notes:

Acquired from the estate of a prominent North Carolinian, this book is a wonderful catalog of southern ingredients and recipes.

From the Publisher:

This delightful cookbook celebrates the glories of southern baking, with 300 recipes for the breads, biscuits, cakes, pies, cookies, and sweets that have been the pride of southern cooks for generations.

From his first chapter on cornmeal--with recipes for dumplings, hushpuppies, and four styles of spoonbread--to his delicious array of desserts--including persimmon pudding, lemon chess pie, and pecan cake with caramel icing--Bill Neal interweaves fascinating bits of culinary history with a native's knowledge of the cooking secrets of the rural South. He demystifies beaten biscuits, revives such southern standbys as baps and bannocks, and freshens up old favorites such as peach cobbler and fruitcake. Passing on the traditions of the southern kitchen, Neal pays tribute to the richness of the region's heritage.

Biscuits, Spoonbread, and Sweet Potato Pie was first published in 1990.

About the Author:

Bill Neal was a gifted chef, restaurateur, and writer working at a time when Americans were beginning to take a new interest in their culinary heritage helped raise Southern food to national prominence.  Neal taught himself to cook by working his way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. By his mid 30s, the elder Neal had helmed two essential Triangle restaurants, La Residence and Crooks Corner and written a book, Bill Neal's Southern Cooking, that became a landmark of the region's cuisine. He was arguably the cook who made shrimp and grits a staple of contemporary Southern cuisine.  He died of AIDS in 1991.

Release Date: 1990 (Signed, first edition)

Condition: Near Fine book with dustjacket, some light wear on the front, bottom board.  Light UX damage on the dust jacket.  Text and content like new.